This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.
The Western Campaign of Shirin Mama: The miraculous story of the birth of a goddessSibe people (Northeast Asia)
This is the most important origin epic of the Sibe (Xibo) people, explaining the birth of the goddess Shirin Mama, protector of children and families. The epic was collected from a storyteller named He Junyou (born 1924). He inherited the story from his great-grandfather, father, and uncle. It was originally told in Manchu, but He Junyou wrote it down in Chinese to preserve it for posterity. Later on, in 2008, folklorists visited him and re-recorded the entire epic, as well as other texsts he knew, and published them. It is now registered as part of the intangible cultural heritage of the Sibe. I read the Hungarian translation by Sárközi Ildikó Gyöngyvér - it is not a complete translation, but it told the core story.
What is it about?
TL;DR: Young warrior Shirin sets out to lead her tribe's warriors against three infamous robber kings. After she brings her armies to victory, she sets out on the journey home, accompanied by orphans, protecting them and finding them new families. In the end, she becomes a gooddes.
Shirin, a young girl raised to be a great hunter and fighter, goes to war in the place of her parents to face a trio of evil bandits and their armies. (Unlike Mulan and other folklore heroines, she does so without disguise - her people value women and men equally.) She is chosen to lead the warriors of her tribe. Along the road she encounters other capable young women who join her, and her army slowly swells to 500 people. When she reaches the western lands threatened by the three bandit kings, she joins up with the armies of the Six Tribes, who long have been trying to defeat their evil neighbors. We learn about the backstory and horrendous crimes of the bandits - Demon, Rabid Wolf, and Great Bear, and Demon's evil advisor Sticky Counselor - who capture women and children and trade them for advanced weaponry and armor in China. With the help of Shirin, and some enslaved people who managed to escape from the bandit fortresses, the unified army takes down all of them. Two are killed by their vengeful slaves, the other two brought to a trial by Shirin. Once the war is over, Shirin escorts 999 orphaned children and a few hundred young women to her homeland. They are all adopted into new families there - 18 of them join Shirin's own household. In time, Shirin - now a general - ascends and becomes a protective goddess.
The highlights
SO. MANY. HIGHLIGHTS!
Like. Literally. This entire epic is what I always wanted a woman's epic to be. I can geek about it for hours, you guys. It's incredible.
Alright, let's see some highlights:
1. Shirin's parents. Her father is an orphan who grows up to be an excellent archer. When he finds a hunter gravely injured, he decides to help the man's family by teaching his children to hunt, fight, and support their parents. One of these children is a girl. They fall in love while training together, but are not allowed to marry. But they move in together anyway, and they have Shirin.
2. Shirin is raised by a friendly tiger for a few years. The tiger hides her from the warriors of a neighboring tribe who try to kidnap her as a baby. It does so because Shirin's parents healed it once upon a time.
3. Shirin's first heroic deed as a child is beating up a bunch of boys. The boys are throwing fruit at girls - their people's way of courting. Except the girls want none of their attention. The boys, angered by rejection, keep harrassing them, until Shirin comes along and puts a beating on them. The elders of the tribe decide it was justified.
4. Shirin is chosen as the general of her tribe's warriors, and no one has a problem with it. She is accompanied by Spring Flower, a neighbor whom she helped when she didn't have money for a dowry. Along the way they pick up Yellow Moonlight, another girl who protected her sister-in-law from bandits, and Balsam, a woman who saved her mother-in-law (her husband also joins the army). The team is rounded out by Selunbao, a young man whose beloved Fire Butterfly is a captive of the bandits.
5. We get detailed backstories for the three evil bandit kings. Including how they discovered that they could trade women and children for weapons in China, and how they sacrificed some of their own family members. The entire world of the epic is amazingly detailed - from the various reasons people join the bandits, or escape, or decide not to fight back, all the way to the deeds of the Sticky Counselor, who comes up with a lot of cruel plans to keep slaves in line. The epic even describes how the bandit kings stay in power, and what effects their rule has on the land.
6. During the war, Shirin is repeatedly helped by children who ran away from the bandits. They open doors for her, give information about the fortresses, and beause she treats them kindly and trusts their word, they become key figures in winning the war. Some of them also become chiefs after the war, elected by their people.
7. During each siege, Shirin makes an effort to capture the bandit kings alive and bring them to trial. Two of them are killed by the freed captives, but the Counselor and Great Bear are taken alive. They go through a trial, their sins are listed and their stories explored. In the end, it is decided they can keep their life, and get another chance at mending all the wrongs they had done.
8. During the siege against Demon's fortress, Shirin finds out that the enslaved people inside are already planning a revolt, led by a man named Yindali. Shirin manages to contact the secret rebels, and they help from the inside to topple Demon's reign.
9. Shirin is accompanied by her dog, Little Smoky, who fights at her side and catches arrows in flight. There are also several other dogs who accompany the warriors and keep them safe.
10. On the way home with the rescued children, Shirin's people are attacked by wolves, then bears, then tigers. Each time she fights them off, and each time she spares one - a wolf, a bear, a tiger - that has pups. Later on, these animals come back to help her in battle.
11. There is an episode during the homeward journey where Shirin overhears three of the orphaned children play-pretending to be bandits and chiefs. It is an amazing piece of storytelling, accurately portraying young children working through trauma through play. The children discuss how mig demons can enter people's minds and make them do evil things - and also how little demons can stick in people's minds if they are enslaved, and torment them after. Basically, this is an epic's exploration of PTSD.
12. Shirin becomes known as Shirin Mama by the children she rescued and found new homes for. She is not a fertility goddess or a birth mother - she is a foster mother figure to a whole generation. She becomes a goddess who protects families. Throughout the entire story she is kind, caring, considerate, and never vicious or vengeful. Even later, as a goddess, she occasionally shows up to help chiefs and warriors - but if someone becomes too cruel or boastful, she takes her blessings away.
SO.
Here is an epic about a woman, who is not only strong, clever, and heroic, but is also kind and caring. An epic where the villains get second chances. An epic that explores the psychology of horrible crimes, and the psychology of healing from trauma. An epic where healing (by Shirin, and by Spring Flower) is just as essential as martial prowess. An epic where communities work together. An epic where children are valued and trusted. This is not just "Add a Sword" feminism where a patriarchal narrative gets a Jeanne D'Arc who deals with problems the same way. This epic is layered, and beautiful, and empathic, and rich. It also connects into living tradition - Shirin Mama is still worshiped and venerated among the Sibe today.
THIS. EPIC. IS AMAZING.
I would love to read a longer translation. Wouldn't you?
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